Green Rainham Central candidate has lesson for Education Authorities

As someone who has spoken at schools on British adventure, including those in Rainham where I grew up, I know that children respond well to alternative forms of teaching.

The headmaster at St Margaret’s School in Orchard Street Rainham once said to me, ‘Mr Meegan, the children refuse to go to break because they so love stories of British adventure!’ Stories like that have inspired many children to go on to greater things over the years – Winston Churchill was so inspired by a British adventurer who came to speak at his school that it was mentioned in his book ‘My Early Life’.

It would be difficult to envisage this happening in today’s British educational system which is so rigid and inflexible. It ties everyone in knots. It constrains our teachers and learners with inflexible lesson criteria and endless tests. And the result of this inspiration-free model is likely to be a future where we are all impoverished.

We need to campaign for the adoption of a better system, supported by the Green Party, which regards children and young people’s own interests and enthusiasms as the natural starting-point for productive learning, the roots from which a broad curriculum can grow.

This would allow teachers and learners to work together in developing curriculum content which suits their needs and interests within the context of a broad framework that encourages the development of a full range of life skills.

We need to reject the shift to market driven models of education that see its role only in terms of standardised rote learning, and preparation for work.